


Walked Into It

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Deaf Character, Deaf Clint Barton, F/M, Genderqueer Character, MTF character, MtF universe, Trans Female Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:05:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1597655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint’s soulmate name is Alexander and Clint calls this whole soulmate deal bullshit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walked Into It

If there is a thing every superhero has learned the bad way is this: you don't get drunk during weddings. Christmas? Yep. New Year's? Of course.

Weddings? NOPE.

You can get tipsy, get a drink or two, perhaps, but other than the happy couple (and perhaps a few people who decided to say, fuck it all, free booze) most superheroes WON'T get drunk. Weddings, as a whole, seem to be a super magical magnet to every creep on the universe and you always need to be ready to grab your weapon. Or well, he and the tiniy fraction of not super-powered superheroes need to grab their weapons.

So no, Clint is most definitely not drunk, just tipsy, thank you.

"I think the whole concept of soulmates is bullshit."

Kate isn't drunk either. She has been smiling a lot, which comes with the part of being the best gal of the wedding, her dress blue and soft. But at his comment she rolls her eyes, sitting down and pulling off her heels, then moving towards the closet of the room, pulling out a pair of flats before coming where he is and sitting down.

"Are we seriously going to talk about that after the wedding of my two best friends who, if you don't remember, are soulmates?"

Clint waves his hand. "It's nothing against Bill and Ted, they're good guys. But they're like, what. Eighteen?"

"Teddy is twenty, Billy almost nineteen."

"See? And they just got married because, what? They're soulmates?"

"And because as superheroes we never know when we might be killed in action so it's better to go carpe diem at things than wait forever and when you or your partner or both get killed, you know you had a good thing at least. And thank you for making me think about my guys possible death in the future, that's a cheery thought for a wedding day," Kate takes the the bottle from his hand, pouring some red wine in her cup, obviously upset at him. "Who the futz pissed on your wine and why are you being such a weddings grinch, again?"

"It's just such a bullshit thing!" He shakes his head. "This idea that just because you know the name of one person in the universe, it means you have to be together. What if we're given the name of a psycho who's going to try and conquer the galaxy? Or maybe it's the name that YOU were supposed to have, if only your parents could know but no! It's a soulmate! And it's not even that they give you a full name, so maybe you're with the wrong person but you make yourself believe you're with the right one."

Kate stands up and leans forward, frowning.

“Okay, Clint. What's going on?”

He sighs, takes another sip of the wine. Mumbles. “Tomorrow it'd be Bobbi and my anniversary.”

“And you're doing the whole regret thing. Right now. With me.”

“What? No, no,” Clint pulls Kate forward. She resists a bit, for a second, before she relents. She falls down on his lap, not quite pouting, but looking off which, Clint figures, makes sense. No matter how great your girlfriend is, you don't go and tell her you regret your divorce. Because he doesn't, really, not with all the years that have gone between it. He regrets things in his relationship with her, yes, things that he tries to recall not to do them again. He regrets hurting Bobbi. How it hurt them both. But not that. “It's... I just remembered.”

“What part?” Kate isn't quite leaning back against him just yet, so Clint shakes his head.

“How when your relationship doesn't work with someone who isn't your soulmate, everyone excuses it because they weren't meant to be, or the way people look at you if you choose to be with someone who isn't your 'intended' as if you were settling down, or as if you wouldn't love them.”

"My parents weren't soulmates and they were disgustingly in love up until the day mom died," Kate says and she shrugs. "And I do mean disgustingly: even with mom's travels they called each other daily, they sent each other ridiculous valentines, decided they were too rich to care about not displaying PDAs in front of their daughters... I don't think he has ever wanted to actually find his soulmate."

“See? That just proves my point,” Clint gives a nod before looking at her. “Do you want to meet yours, Katie?”

“Me?” Kate snorts. “They have a pretty stupid name and they're not very bright.”

“So you've met them?” He asks, curious despite himself. No-way Kate would let something like destiny choose her life, but it feels strange, that she has never mentioned them, this person who would, in theory, complete her.

Kate, however, just smiles and leans forward to kiss him. It still feels new, this. Kissing Kate, having her in his arms. Not quite fragile, because he can never associate Kate with fragilness, but something that Clint doesn't want to mess up, like they almost did, a few years ago, with their friendship.

"Go to sleep, Hawkeye, and stop being bitter on my best friends' wedding party, or I'll have to kick your ass" Kate stands up, taking the bottle with her, walking towards the door. Outside, the music is still going, fireworks – or maybe magic - exploding. Clint puts his cellphone on vibrate, then takes out his auditive aids, leaning forward to rest on the couch, enjoying the silence.

**

The thing is, what he won't tell anyone, not even Kate, is this: his parents were soulmates. He saw his mom justify most of his father's behaviour with that one-half-of-the-same-futzing-soul bullshit, swearing that it hadn't always been bad, that things would be better for sure. His mom had bought deeply into that rom-com idea that being a soulmate meant that every single problem was immediately fixed. She had known since she was little the name of her soulmate, had waited patiently to get the mental picture of when and where you'd meat them.

 _Clint's_ soulmate is - or will be - named Alexander and he is/will meet him, perhaps, with rains and lilies involved. He has only ever told that to two people: Barney, who made fun of him for a year, and Bobbi, because she had told him about hers.

When he had been younger and stupider, he had wondered what it meant, that his soulmate was a man when he was straight, had thought it a joke, one of the reasons why, when he had been eighteen, he had decided to never search for him.

Being an Avenger has given him different insight to different soulmates, soulmates who become the best of friends, because being a soulmate isn't always sexual nor romantic, soulmates who sometimes are even family, your blood and bones, and that idea, those concepts, they kinda reconciled him with the idea that, somewhere out there, there is-or-will-be a man named Alexander, involved with parks and maybe lilies, with whom he's supposed to have a special connection.

Even so, Clint decided, back when he and Bobbi had just gotten married, that he wasn't going to actively search for him, as a way to defy destiny, perhaps. Bobbi had agreed with him, and he had never actually wondered if Bobbi regretted it, her decision. Then Jess, and she had told him that she already knew who her soulmate was, but that she and Sharon were only best friends.

And Kate and whomever might be. Kate, who chose to be with him for some reason he can't even try to understand.

No one talks about the soulmate divorces, or the murders, or how there is a 17.8% in the most recent census that just aren't compatible despite that click due to personal believes. The media doesn't like it when the fairytale romances don't work.

Sometimes Clint tells himself that maybe this guy is dead, which would be just his luck. But whenever he thinks that, there's this part of him that aches in complete misery, as if saying no, no. Sometimes (mostly when he's injured) he tries to think of him, what kind of person he'd be.

**

Dating Kate comes with the fact that now there are paparazzi who sometimes decide to take his photo, usually when he and Kate are walking together. It is, really, one of the most minor inconvenients that there could be, and when he asks Peter, he gives him a few pointers so they can throw the paparazzi's trail for a while, or even ruin their photos.

It comes with the paparazzi asking them if they're soulmates and both of them laughing out loud, and he meeting Kate's family (and most definitely not laughing at that). It comes not with Cap's worries but with America Chavez cheerfully informing him what she could do to him if he hurt Kate. It comes with Natasha asking him, in her quiet way, if he's sure about this and Clint saying no, he isn't, but he's doing it anyway.

Dating Kate also comes with learning about her scars in the same way that, he's sure, she's doing about his.

It has come from learning about Kate's scars, the ones that she has acquired being a hero – one on her back from rocks falling, the almost-completely-erased-burn of a laser on her side, a bullet wound on her thigh and the ones that can't be seen, like her mom and Cassie, or when people use 'he' instead of 'she' with her, with the careful way that whenever someone knows, Kate has to put up her defenses. Clint had gotten that one, when he said of course he knew, because Kate had the misfortune of being the daughter of a famous man, so her transition was never a quiet affair. He had gotten Kate, still mourning her best friend, glare at him, ask him if it was going to be a problem, all but ready to fight.

Clint remembers, clearly, the naked relief on Katie's face when he said, why would it be.

Dating Kate means that he learns how to navigate around those battle scars of Kate, as well as the ones that remain. Kate likes neck kisses, but never on the front, beneath her chin, or by the side of her jaw. When he kisses her breasts, be careful not to focus too much on the lingering double scars on the underside.

Thankfully, Kate likes being on top and she is a natural top, so she doesn't have problems telling him what she wants, how she wants it, so all Clint has to do is pay pinpoint attention to the tiny tremors on her thighs, to the way her hands may hold unto his, or grab unto his hair. It's here that he misses having his hearing, because sometimes, even with his aids, he doesn't get to listen to the hitches in her breathe, sometimes misses the whispers of his name.

There are nights, after, when Kate is sleeping against him, that Clint scoffs the idea of soulmates, the possibility that there is someone else in the world with whom he would rather be than Kate, that there exists an Alexander with-rain-and-lilies that, apparently, understands him better than Kate.

But sometimes this particular set of battle scars means that he has to be extra careful with his nicknames, because what one day might make Kate roll her eyes and call him doofus, other days might actually hurt her, have her hunch her arms tightly around her, knit her eyebrows, look down.

When it happens, after he wished her a 'good morning, girly', he switches gears quickly.

“Kate?”

He's not sure, hopes it's s a fault in his hearing aids, because that almost sounded like a --

Kate doesn't look at him, but it's clear when she moves a hand to her face. It was a sniff.

“Futz, Kate, I'm sorry, I didn't--”

“It's not you,” Kate says, sounding-- not sad. Hurt, yes, but angry. “I got like a zillion tweets and before I could even find out what the futz was this about, David messaged me to alert me, and it's just so--I'm calling dad's lawyer and I'm going to sue and take away every single cent and then giving that money to charity and _then_ I'm going to have them _kneel_ and apologize and-- ”

She makes a sound of sheer frustration and pain. When Clint puts his arm on her shoulder, Kate allows his comfort, turning around to press her face against his chest, trembling in her rage. Carefully, Clint takes the phone from her hand to look at the screen.

" _—erek Bishop and his new squeeze who, we might add, was a close friend of his son, Eric Alexander Bishop, who calls himself 'Katherine' or 'Kate' since he was thirteen--_ "

He kinda freezes for a moment, reading again to make sure he actually read that.

"Alexander?" he murmurs, looking down at Kate. She sniffs a little and then looks at him.

"I told you they were being gross about it," and then, when he notices his look, she frowns. "What? You're not making a big deal of my birth name right now, are you?"

"No, no, Katie, it's not that...”

Rain-- Kate, so angry and disappointed as he was wearing Steve's uniform, pretending to be him, her hair stuck to her face.

Lilies, months later, Kate embarrassed and then furious, fighting him like a pro would, despite her inexperience.

Clint recalls those two moments with crystal clear remembrance, remembers the anger and the hurt and the embarrassment of the first meeting, remembers the second one more warmly, remembers thinking that the kid that Kate had been back then would go places, and if he tries he can remember the warmth he felt, the amazement over Kate Bishop and--

_And he had spent his whole life thinking it was going to be a man._

He is about to tell her, Kate, the ever romantic, about how he just found out another reason why this whole soulmate thing is stupid, how it only gives birthnames, doesn't consider chosen names, or he would have tied the knots, he would have realized, he's positive about it, even with his stupid sounding name and his sometimes stupidness.

But... it can wait. It's a conversation for another time, with different scars on mind. He smiles at her, moves to wipe her face. “Of course I'm not, Katie. I never would.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been writing and rewriting this fic for about six months, give or take a few. I’ve done my best to write it tactfully and there’s a good chance I didn’t make it, to which I can only apologize and promise to do better next time. The good parts of this are thanks to Snows and her marvelous ideas.


End file.
